Picasso described him as my one and only master. Matisse – or was it Picasso again – called him the father of us all. Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is widely recognized as the father of modern art. The exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art titled Cézanne and Beyond gives even the casual viewer clear reasons for the homage.
This exhibition features forty paintings and twenty watercolors and drawings by Cézanne juxtaposed with the works of other artists which clearly show his influence. While Cézanne was successful in his lifetime, it was at the posthumous retrospective at the Salon d’Automne in 1907 that his collected works exploded on the art world's consciousness.
Beyond Impressionism
The exhibit shows his influence on successive generations of artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, and later artists such as American painters Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns, and Canadian photographer Jeff Wall. A contemporary of Impressionists Monet, Renoir, Degas and others, Cézanne went beyond the impression and delved into the essence of an object by using what were radically new techniques.
One such technique, as the show's audio guide explains, was simultaneous multiple viewpoints. Since the Renaissance painters had abided by single point perspective. But Cézanne included multiple viewpoints within a single painting – indeed, usually within single objects in a painting – while imbuing them with weight and uncannily real-world presence. One expects to hear the thud as the fruit in his Still Life with Ginger Jar, Sugar Pot and Apples (1900) rolls off the table and lands on the floor.Put simply, Cézanne's abstractions were three-dimensional and solid.
History and Context in Modern Art
Always aware of the history of art, Cézanne used it as a starting point for many of his works. In The Smoker (1890-92), a portrait of a field worker, one sees the reflection of classical portraiture through the lens of modernity: the subject is a laborer, not a lord, striking an aristocratic pose. Cézanne's painting became the inspiration for the painting The Mechanic (1920) by Fernand Leger. Likewise, photographer Jeff Wall consciously echoes – if not parodies – Cézanne's The Card Players (1890-92) with his 2006 lightbox transparency of the same title. In some cases Cézanne's influence is more obvious than others.
In many cases one's appreciation benefits from contextual help. Ellsworth Kelly's Lake II (2002) is such an example. One might say the large, solid blue wedge of canvas was lifted directly from Cézanne's The Bay of Marseilles Seen from L'Estaque.(c.1885) Placing the two works side by side and knowing the debt of one to the other illuminates both. Indeed, after viewing this exhibit it might be argued that modern art is all about context or its lack.
Joseph Rishel, the museum's Curator of European Painting Before 1900, described the exhibit as a great big cocktail party. Like a cocktail party, Rishel said, the show took on a life of its own and went in directions other than what its hosts, Rishel and exhibit co-curator Katherine Sachs, had intended. No doubt that is true. Still, the overarching idea one takes from the exhibit is that Cézanne is the most influential transition between the representative, narrative art of the 19th century and abstract art of the 20th. For more information see www.philamusuem.org.
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